Some conventionally known portable telephone apparatuses are capable of calculating the current location of themselves by receiving the location of a plurality of base stations, or capable of calculating the current location from the data received by a GPS (global positioning system) receiver. Correspondingly, there have been developed various ways of exploiting such current location information, as by making a portable telephone apparatus perform a predetermined operation according to its current location.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-285382 discloses a portable telephone apparatus that automatically sends an electronic mail message when it reaches a predetermined location. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-160985 discloses a system in which the current location of a portable telephone apparatus is sent to a base station, which then sends back telephone use restriction information so that, according to this information, use of the telephone in, for example, a medical facility, is prohibited.
However, these conventional portable telephone apparatuses exploit current location information simply to perform a previously determined operation, and such a capability is not very frequently used by all users. Inconveniently, this has been preventing the user of such a portable telephone apparatus from enjoying a benefit comparable to the cost of a GPS receiver.